by Dwight A. Moody
Today, Maundy Thursday, we remember the arrest and incarceration of Jesus.
We Christians do not give it much attention; most of that goes to the Last Supper, which launched what we now call the Eucharist (or The Lord’s Supper), or to the Prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus said those famous words, “Your will be done,” or to the denial by Simon Peter. Even less attention is focused on the trial, the witnesses, and the judgment of those in charge, Pilate and Herod.
Tomorrow, things shift to crucifixion and the famous Seven Last Words of Jesus: like, “I am thirsty” and “Into your hands, I commit my spirit.” Some congregations gather on what we call Good Friday to hear ministers deliver homilies (sermons) on these seven sentences. They are powerful and deserve such attention.
But it was Thursday evening of Holy Week when Jesus of Nazareth was arrested and incarcerated. I have rarely if ever preached on this episode, perhaps including it only in passing in my own treatment of these last days of Jesus. After all, our primary narrative of these things as taught and preached can be summed up like this: God sent Jesus to be our savior. Jesus knew he was destined to die on the cross for our sins. This was God plan to ensure eternal life in heaven for those who know about this event and who believe it. That is what we have called The Plan of Salvation.
But we need to think more deeply about the incarceration of Jesus, for two reasons.
First, there are a lot of people around the world living in jails and prisons, more than 11 million, an all time high. Countries with the highest incarceration rate are El Salvador at 1,659 per 100,000 population, Cuba at 794 per 100,000 population, and the United States at 541 per 100,000 population.
With less than 5% of the world’s population, the United States has almost 25% of the world’s prison population. There are more than two million people in jail today in the United States. This constitutes an immediate and troubling reality.
Second, there are many incarceration stories in the Bible: Pharoah threw Joseph, one of the 12 sons of Jacob, into jail as a result of false testimony (Genesis 41). Zedekiah put the prophet Jeremiah in jail for a message of judgment against the king (Jeremiah 37), and city officials incarcerated Paul and Silas for disrupting somebody’s income during their missionary journey to Philippi (Acts 16). Others spending time behind bars include Samson, John the Baptist, and the three Hebrew men: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.
This double context helps us understand why Jesus began his ministry in Nazareth with this declaration: “The Lord has sent me to proclaim the release of the captives.” Later, Jesus included visiting the incarcerated as one of the six practices to be highlighted on the Judgment Day. Even later, the anonymous apostle wrote to those first century followers of Jesus, “Remember those in prison as if you were there yourself” (Hebrews 13:3).
It is a striking fact that every incarceration story in the Bible is told with sympathy toward those on in the inside. It is the prisoner not the judge or jailer that is the focus of God’s care and concern, the incarcerated person is the biblical evidence of injustice.
How strange it is, then, that so much religious energy today is given to condemning those behind bars and working to put more people there. “Lock her up” became a popular and powerful chant in recent political campaigns.
This, then, is the immediate gospel context of the drama playing out, first, in a notorious prison in Central America and, second, in the federal court rooms in North America.
Here are the facts. One hard-working man was suddenly, and mistakenly, abducted from his home, whisked to a waiting airplane, and transported to El Salvador. He was placed in a notorious prison. What was absent in this story was any criminal conviction, no access to a lawyer, and no hearing before a judge. In other words, a process in violation of the basic rights afforded all people in the United States, what we call “due process.”
A federal judge ruled it was a miscarriage of basic justice and ordered the man brought home; a federal appeals court concurred; then the Supreme Court ruled unanimously with the same conclusion.
Today, we recall the story from the Bible, how political and religious authorities determined that Jesus of Nazareth was a threat both to the public peace and also to their political power. They arrested the innocent man we now call the Savior. They incarcerated him and then executed him without due process.
This is the part of the Jesus story we need to remember today. This is the part of the Jesus story that needs to take center stage in our Holy Week rituals. This is the part of the Jesus story that needs to shape the way we tell the story of that man—Kilmar Abrego Garcia—now jailed in the dungeons of El Salvador—CECOT, it is known in the Western Hemisphere.
Somebody else is in that same prison. His name is Jesus. I can hear him singing that simple gospel song taught to me when I was young:
I’ve got a river of life flowing out of me.
Makes the lame to walk and the blind to see.
Opens prison doors, sets the captives free.
I’ve got a river of life flowing out of me.
While some are shouting “Lock him up!” others of us are singing this chorus as we recall the words of Jesus, “I have come to set the captive free.”
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by Dwight A. Moody
Today, Maundy Thursday, we remember the arrest and incarceration of Jesus.
We Christians do not give it much attention; most of that goes to the Last Supper, which launched what we now call the Eucharist (or The Lord’s Supper), or to the Prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus said those famous words, “Your will be done,” or to the denial by Simon Peter. Even less attention is focused on the trial, the witnesses, and the judgment of those in charge, Pilate and Herod.
Tomorrow, things shift to crucifixion and the famous Seven Last Words of Jesus: like, “I am thirsty” and “Into your hands, I commit my spirit.” Some congregations gather on what we call Good Friday to hear ministers deliver homilies (sermons) on these seven sentences. They are powerful and deserve such attention.
But it was Thursday evening of Holy Week when Jesus of Nazareth was arrested and incarcerated. I have rarely if ever preached on this episode, perhaps including it only in passing in my own treatment of these last days of Jesus. After all, our primary narrative of these things as taught and preached can be summed up like this: God sent Jesus to be our savior. Jesus knew he was destined to die on the cross for our sins. This was God plan to ensure eternal life in heaven for those who know about this event and who believe it. That is what we have called The Plan of Salvation.
But we need to think more deeply about the incarceration of Jesus, for two reasons.
First, there are a lot of people around the world living in jails and prisons, more than 11 million, an all time high. Countries with the highest incarceration rate are El Salvador at 1,659 per 100,000 population, Cuba at 794 per 100,000 population, and the United States at 541 per 100,000 population.
With less than 5% of the world’s population, the United States has almost 25% of the world’s prison population. There are more than two million people in jail today in the United States. This constitutes an immediate and troubling reality.
Second, there are many incarceration stories in the Bible: Pharoah threw Joseph, one of the 12 sons of Jacob, into jail as a result of false testimony (Genesis 41). Zedekiah put the prophet Jeremiah in jail for a message of judgment against the king (Jeremiah 37), and city officials incarcerated Paul and Silas for disrupting somebody’s income during their missionary journey to Philippi (Acts 16). Others spending time behind bars include Samson, John the Baptist, and the three Hebrew men: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.
This double context helps us understand why Jesus began his ministry in Nazareth with this declaration: “The Lord has sent me to proclaim the release of the captives.” Later, Jesus included visiting the incarcerated as one of the six practices to be highlighted on the Judgment Day. Even later, the anonymous apostle wrote to those first century followers of Jesus, “Remember those in prison as if you were there yourself” (Hebrews 13:3).
It is a striking fact that every incarceration story in the Bible is told with sympathy toward those on in the inside. It is the prisoner not the judge or jailer that is the focus of God’s care and concern, the incarcerated person is the biblical evidence of injustice.
How strange it is, then, that so much religious energy today is given to condemning those behind bars and working to put more people there. “Lock her up” became a popular and powerful chant in recent political campaigns.
This, then, is the immediate gospel context of the drama playing out, first, in a notorious prison in Central America and, second, in the federal court rooms in North America.
Here are the facts. One hard-working man was suddenly, and mistakenly, abducted from his home, whisked to a waiting airplane, and transported to El Salvador. He was placed in a notorious prison. What was absent in this story was any criminal conviction, no access to a lawyer, and no hearing before a judge. In other words, a process in violation of the basic rights afforded all people in the United States, what we call “due process.”
A federal judge ruled it was a miscarriage of basic justice and ordered the man brought home; a federal appeals court concurred; then the Supreme Court ruled unanimously with the same conclusion.
Today, we recall the story from the Bible, how political and religious authorities determined that Jesus of Nazareth was a threat both to the public peace and also to their political power. They arrested the innocent man we now call the Savior. They incarcerated him and then executed him without due process.
This is the part of the Jesus story we need to remember today. This is the part of the Jesus story that needs to take center stage in our Holy Week rituals. This is the part of the Jesus story that needs to shape the way we tell the story of that man—Kilmar Abrego Garcia—now jailed in the dungeons of El Salvador—CECOT, it is known in the Western Hemisphere.
Somebody else is in that same prison. His name is Jesus. I can hear him singing that simple gospel song taught to me when I was young:
I’ve got a river of life flowing out of me.
Makes the lame to walk and the blind to see.
Opens prison doors, sets the captives free.
I’ve got a river of life flowing out of me.
While some are shouting “Lock him up!” others of us are singing this chorus as we recall the words of Jesus, “I have come to set the captive free.”
SUBSCRIBE BELOW TO THIS WEEKLY FREE NEWSLETTER
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